More Power to You (ca. 1930s)

[Music] la the flash of power The Gleam of oil in the sky the power of oil Conquering the Heights on the sea the might of petroleum pulsing in great engines of the liners that Traverse the Deep on Land Oil feeds the fiery furnace or drives the diesel engines along farflung rails of Steel and on the open road well you know what makes your auto run for millions of years this source of power slept peacefully in the dark recesses of the earth until Modern Magic loosed the liquid energy from its Subterranean prison great areas became forests of towering dcks and here's how the petroleum Forest grows a Cellar is dug and a rotary table to turn the drilling stem on the bit is set in place round and round the the rotary goes drilling deep down to oil a steam engine drives the drilling mechanism they're inserting a length of pipe lengthening out the stem for deeper drilling a new joint is waiting oil field workers are called Drillers rough necks rabs rope chokers the oil field treats our ears to odd and colorful names now the drilling stem has been lengthened then round and round once more down through layers of sandstone Shale Limestone down to astonishing depths this well 5,000 ft some 10,000 2 miles into the Earth and then after weeks of drilling fighting against natural obstacles the drill at last reaches the oil sand porous Rock which holds the oil much as a sponge HS water next the casing is lowered to the bottom of the hole and cemented in position then drill through the oil sand and a screen is installed at the base of the casing the screen extends down into the oil sand the oil flows through the screen up through the small pipe cubing to the surface so they've struck oil and now the well must be cleaned of a mixture of drill mud and oil some wells flow of their own pressure others must be pumped need power the power is transmitted to groups of Wells the ever swaying rocker arm the rhythm of pumping the unceasing heartbeat of the oil fields a 24 well hookup is the height of oil field power pumping black magic from two dozen drillings in the Earth all at the same time out of the ground the oil is cleaned of natural gas or water which is combined with it next the petroleum starts on its way through a great network of pip lines there are powerful pumping stations every 40 or 50 Mi to keep it moving along the lines the lines of pipe alive with racing oil run through forests and over Plains to these silver discs there storage tanks where the oil rests briefly before it rides the waves in giant tankers and there masterpieces of ship bu building those tankers of Steel the largest navigate the sea at 15 knots and carry 5 and 1.2 million gallons of oil The Voyage of oil to the refineries the refinery with its modern structures technological towers minettes of science docks Office Buildings pageant of Industry day after day there is an endless flow of oil as the tankers discharge their Liquid Cargo unloading oil is a vast operation of piping through huge hoses discharged pipes on the vessel and receiving lines on the dock are connected and A Cargo of 5 million gallons is discharged in less than 24 hours no two caros of crude oil are alike so each boatload must be stored in different tanks and each batch must be processed individually with laboratory tests to indicate the precise Tri treatment for each that is embodied science those masses of strangely rought steel forests of stacks glowering and hissing boilers leaping and winking fire boxes intense heat the Flames Roar in the furnace yet the oil flows so fast the heat does not Scorch It And scientists rest from the crude petroleum its tremendous power in the form of gasoline and other fuel oils and that's done in these towers called fractionating Towers they divide crude oil into the lighter and heavier Parts those of different boiling points liquefy at different levels in the towers some lighter than gasoline liquefy at the top heavier Parts liquefy further down at the bottom are the heavy fuel oils or the raw materials from which lubricating oils are made when increasing use of motor cars pyramided the demand for gasoline to Extra ordinary Heights scientists were called upon to devise new methods How could a greater proportion of gasoline be extracted from the crude oil than that obtained from the fractionating tower alone to meet this challenge the scientists turned to products other than gasoline which are drawn from the Cod studied their molecules and found a way to change them to turn them into gasoline the result was cracking let's look at a diagram of a cracking plant here we see how one part of petroleum that is not gasoline is converted into gasoline called gas oil it is pumped through a pipe into a cracking furnace heated to over 900° under tremendous pressure and the individual particles molecules are broken into smaller molecules just as coal is broken under a hammer if we could see one of those molecules it would look something like this the hotter the molecule gets the faster it Wiggles until finally it Wiggles so fast it flies apart the pieces shoot around at Great speeds they eventually find partners and form new and smaller molecules that look something like this these smaller molecules are now no longer gas oil but are gasoline of high powerered kness quality some of the gas oil molecules do not fly apart and must be separated from the gasoline this is done in the bubble Tower here the big molecules which are not gasoline are held back and come out at the bottom as a liquid the gasoline goes up the tower as a vapor comes out at the top and is condensed into liquid gasoline gasoline that gives more power to you experiment is the key to it all and this is the experimental laboratory in the making of powerful Mot M fuel the control of temperatures is of extreme importance and it is measured to an accuracy of 100th part of 1° gasoline is broken down into over 200 Parts in that elongated tallness of glass and each individual part is studied the laboratory with its strange gleaming of new and unpredictable things here are created modern Miracles with the chemistry of oil tank farm to which the motor fuel goes from the refinery and then out to the nation by railroad tank car and by motor barge pipelines run their webike Nets under rivers over mountains carrying gasoline that goes into millions of gasoline tanks to generate billions of horsepower for the nation oil means horsepower in a horsepower using world briefly in four words more power to you